Here is a question from Wendy:
Hello folks, i work as a consulting in an IT software firm. So far used Webex and now transitioned to Microsoft Teams. I understand that there are several techniques to share pptx slides in Microsoft Teams for Windows. Specifically i am interested to share my presentation without showing the presenter notes to the participants (i still would like to view my notes though). One extra requirement is to be able to view the participants list and video feed of those connecting using their cameras. Any pointers are appreciated.
Thanks for the question. There are several ways to show your slides in a Teams meeting. We’ll focus on the most prevalent ones.
- Using the PowerPoint Slide view shared over Teams.
- Using your PowerPoint Presenter View and two screens
- Using the Microsoft Teams PowerPoint live sharing
Note: We developed this answer using Windows but this will work almost perfectly in PowerPoint and Teams for macOS.
Share the PowerPoint Slide View
This is probably the simplest and most straightforward option for sharing slides.
- First off, open PowerPoint and load your presentation.
- Then start or connect to your Teams meeting from your Calendar; or start a new Team meeting.
- Use the Teams share tray to start sharing your desktop.
- Then pick the Screenshare (Desktop/Window) option.
- Choose to share the content of one of your screens or the relevant PowerPoint presentation window.
- Hit Share.
- Back to PowerPoint, move to Slide Show view by clicking F5. This will allow to share your PowerPoint presentation in full screen mode.
Summary: Note that although this method is pretty simple it has shortcomings. Unless you have two screens you won’t be able to access your notes. You won’t also be able to view the Teams meeting controls when presenting, so you’ll be able to display the participants list or access the meeting chat while presenting.
Present your slides using Presenter View
If you have two screens you are able to use the PowerPoint presenter View.
- Open PowerPoint and load your Presentation slides.
- From the PowerPoint Ribbon hit Slide Show.
- Then in the Monitor section tick Use Presenter View.
- Then hit F5 (or select Slide Show and then From Beginning).
- Now access your Teams meeting from your Teams or Outlook Calendar.
- In the Teams Meeting controls sharing tray, select Screenshare and then select the monitor that displays your slide in full screen.
- Hit Share, and present your slides.
Summary: This is a more robust method, which allows you to see your notes when presenting, but it requires more than one screen. It also doesn’t allow you to access the Teams user interface and view the participants list etc’.
Using PowerPoint Live to present in Teams
You can now use PowerPoint live capability to improve your presentation delivery in Teams.
- First off, upload your Presentation to a Teams channel or OneDrive.
- Then access your Teams Meeting from Outlook or the Teams Calendar.
- Next, from the meeting control, select the PowerPoint presentation you would like to share. In the example below, we have only one presentation available named Share.pptx.
- If you see your Presentation in the list, you can use the Browse button (as shown above) to either upload a presentation to Teams, browse from existing presentations shared in your Channel or pick one from OneDrive.
- Once the presentation is picked you’ll see your Teams live PowerPoint view.
- As you can see, the presenter view in Teams allows you to access the your notes. Obviously the meeting participants will see the full screen view. Note that both you and participants will be able to move back and forth between the slides as needed.
- You can use the Teams meeting controls (from the lower part of the screen) to view the Team conversation and participant list.
Summary: A very cool option for presenters. Main drawback being that given the fact that it currently leverages the web version of PowerPoint, there might be some features and animations that might not fully work in PowerPoint live.